'Nuclear Go Zero' parades set to take place March 11 nationwide

2017/02/13 15:41:16

Taipei, Feb. 13 (CNA) Nuclear-free advocates around Taiwan have organized three parades through the online "Nuclear Go Zero" action platform, in a national protest action set for March 11 in Taipei, Kaohsiung and Taitung simultaneously.

The parades will take place on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei, the Labor Park in Kaohsiung, and the Tiehua Pedestrian Zone in Taitung, with the theme of "Zero Nuclear, Low Carbon, Sustainable Energy," the organizers said Monday.

The government will be urged to accelerate efforts to realize its campaign promise to replace existing energy sources with green ones, to decommission three operating nuclear power plants as scheduled, and to find the best solution for the disposal of nuclear waste, the organizers said.

This year, they will also demand that the government resolve problems relating to carbon emissions and air pollution. "The government should accelerate its steps, and come up with concrete plans and schedules for the implementation of its nuclear-free policy," the organizers said.

Transforming Taiwan into a nuclear-free country was one of the major political platforms presented by Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in her race for the presidency in 2016.

Tsai won the presidential election on Jan. 16 last year, the same day that her party, the DPP, defeated the then-ruling Kuomintang in the legislative elections, giving it a legislative majority.

As soon as it was inaugurated, the Tsai administration announced that it will make the country nuclear-free by 2025.

The "Nuclear Go Zero Action" action platform was established by more than 100 civil anti-nuclear groups around Taiwan in 2013, after some 220,000 people took to the streets on March 9 that year to take part in protest marches in northern, central, southern and eastern Taiwan, demanding that the fourth nuclear power plant project should be scrapped.

In April 2014, then-Premier Jiang Yi-hua (江宜樺) announced that the nearly completed power plant, located in New Taipei, was to be mothballed. The plant entered mothball status in July of the following year.